Led-tech Zeuss 308xt build (kinda overkill)

I put together my new Zeuss boards a couple of days ago. They are 28x44cm boards with 308 Samsung lm301b leds. I'm driving the four boards with two Meanwell 2.1a drivers (the boards could take upto 3.5a). If I run them at full 2.1a they put out 64000 lumens or 900ppf (1250ppfd) and use 320w of power. The plants were vegged under Vero29 cobs and moved under these lights the day before taking the pics.

I'm so excited to see how they perform in flower. I got them to replace a 315w CMH, which was a great light, but these are much more efficient at 2.9umol/j compared to 1.9umol/j and the light is spread out better.

(Oh, and I'm going to tidy up the wires )

Those plants look a bit pale in the photos, are sure they can handle that much light? Overdoing light intensity too fast is one of the first pitfalls for first grow with a new led

Good to see the Zeus boards here on riu

They were a little pale, but not because of these lights and they were a bit darker green today. The photos exaggerate the colour though! I used to laugh at people wanting a PAR meter and now I really wish I had one It's really is hard to know how much light there really is. Even more so than with the Vero cobs.

Ok, this is four days after the first pics and they just had their first night. The single plant is the second from the left in the group pic.

Horselover fat said:

Ok, this is four days after the first pics and they just had their first night. The single plant is the second from the left in the group pic.

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They definitely look happier. If you want some more vertical growth you can try raising the light a few inches and see if you cannopy dont follow. with those kinda strong light condition you might be holding back on growth by keeping the light too low. Looking good

Thanks! I tied them down a bit to spread them as the tops were quite close to each other. I've grown this strain before, but it was 10+ years ago so I'm not sure how much they are going to strech in the next three weeks. It wasn't a huge strecher like the ace kalichina I had for my last couple of runs, but we'll see. Kalichina was ok smokewise, but my pheno streched to high heavens and did not yield much.

The leds are not running quite at full power, but close to it. I don't have a meter so I don't know how many amps I'm running at the moment. I'll go buy a couple of meters in a few days... too broke to do it now

Youre doing well keeping those plants happy with so much light. Id try just raising the light 5 cm, mark cannopy height and come back in 2 days and see if they havent climbed those 5 cm. If so just continue giving it height to let it stretch out a bit. They look happy but not keen on rowing taller. Theres a point where light is so intense they dont like to grow into it.

Nice job @Horselover fat
A really efficient setup
Is the fixture in a 4ft x 2ft tent? Wat height is tent?
What are the drivers? I can't see from the pics
How far away are plants from the light?
Are you running it full blast 2.1A?
"You do not have to say anything. But it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence.".......

Definitely get a Kilowatt meter. Too much light will make them bonsai, short and squat.
Good luck with your grow.

Horselover fat said:

I put together my new Zeuss boards a couple of days ago. They are 28x44cm boards with 308 Samsung lm301b leds. I'm driving the four boards with two Meanwell 2.1a drivers (the boards could take upto 3.5a). If I run them at full 2.1a they put out 64000 lumens or 900ppf (1250ppfd) and use 320w of power. The plants were vegged under Vero29 cobs and moved under these lights the day before taking the pics.

I'm so excited to see how they perform in flower. I got them to replace a 315w CMH, which was a great light, but these are much more efficient at 2.9umol/j compared to 1.9umol/j and the light is spread out better.

(Oh, and I'm going to tidy up the wires )

Click to expand...

That board is a monster!!!

What was the ticket for that

Moflow said:

Nice job @Horselover fat
A really efficient setup
Is the fixture in a 4ft x 2ft tent? Wat height is tent?
What are the drivers? I can't see from the pics
How far away are plants from the light?
Are you running it full blast 2.1A?
"You do not have to say anything. But it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence.".......

Definitely get a Kilowatt meter. Too much light will make them bonsai, short and squat.
Good luck with your grow.

Click to expand...

Yes it's a 2x4. I think it's 180cm/5'10" tall, but I'm not sure. The light is about 50cm/20" from the tops. Maybe a bit more, but I'm just guessing. I'll measure it tommorrow. It's not quite at full power and I *think* the pots are not quite up to 100k ohm, because it seems like the lights get a bit brighter when I remove the pots, but it's really hard to tell by eye. I need that par meter

I'm sure the same level of light from a smaller source would burn the plants under it real quick.

[Edit] oh and they are are Meanwell ELG 200 c2100b drivers

Frank Nitty said:

What was the ticket for that

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The boards and frames are from led-tech (are links allowed?) for a bit under 400€ And the drivers I got from TME for a bit over 40€ each. Some small stuff from hardware store (junction boxes, wagos etc).. all in all ~500€. Not cheap, but cheap compared to a preassembled light of the same caliber.

This is the same 2x4 tent, a 315w CMH dpapillon and three scrogged Grapefruits in autopots at seven weeks. Yielded pretty much exactly 300g. Not quite enough light for the grow and the canopy was a too full. Less dense canopy would have made for denser buds. That dpap is very good for a rectangle tent like mine.



And this monster is my ace kalichina mom at six weeks in the same tent, but lit by four vero29 cobs at 50w each. The cobs should've been spread out much more and definitely needed more light, but I just wanted to see how it would do and summer temps were on their way. Ended up yeilding 60g + 30-40g fluff buds under the light were small but rock hard.



This is the Vero29 fixture in my 2x2 veg tent. Originally I was going to make another vero fixture, but the boards had gotten so cheap I couldn't resist and the veros are now only for veg.

Horselover fat said:

Yes it's a 2x4. I think it's 180cm/5'10" tall, but I'm not sure. The light is about 50cm/20" from the tops. Maybe a bit more, but I'm just guessing. I'll measure it tommorrow. It's not quite at full power and I *think* the pots are not quite up to 100k ohm, because it seems like the lights get a bit brighter when I remove the pots, but it's really hard to tell by eye. I need that par meter

I'm sure the same level of light from a smaller source would burn the plants under it real quick.

[Edit] oh and they are are Meanwell ELG 200 c2100b drivers

Click to expand...

I thought they were on 320 driver

Rocket Soul said:

I thought they were on 320 driver

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Oh, sorry, I meant the max power draw for the four boards combined is 320w. The 320 driver goes upto 152v and four of these boards at 2.1a would need 155v. The 200 ELGs were the best match I found. Their efficiency is decent down to how much I think I'll be dimming them.

I just measured and the tallest tops are indeed 50cm below the lights. I think I'll raise the lights a bit tommorrow or the day after. The plants seem fine though and the LST is working wonders, but yeah, they need to start going upwards next.

Ha! I suspected the pots are logaritmic and that seems to be the case. I got a lux meter and turns out I was running the boards at about half power! The meter showed 38k lux at the tops and when I cranked it up I got 64k. I know this isn't an accurate number, but it's still useful. I turned up the light to 50k lux and that should be around 700ppf from the boards... I think...

225umol*4=900 /6.4=146.6 *5=703. Does that make sense?

I'm going to leave it at that. They'll have five hours light today and five hours tommorrow before I'll check them again.

Oh and they most certainly started their strech

Horselover fat said:

Ha! I suspected the pots are logaritmic and that seems to be the case. I got a lux meter and turns out I was running the boards at about half power! The meter showed 38k lux at the tops and when I cranked it up I got 64k. I know this isn't an accurate number, but it's still useful. I turned up the light to 50k lux and that should be around 700ppf from the boards... I think...

225umol*4=900 /6.4=146.6 *5=703. Does that make sense?

Click to expand...

Here's a handy online calculator to help with your ballpark figures


Lux to PPFD or PPFD to Lux

OP, be carefull when you double light intensity... youll see deficiencies soon. you can do this for a few hours of day to harden them but dont leave them several days like that